Avenging Angel (1985)

January 12, 1985

FILM: BETSY RUSSELL PLAYS STREETWISE 'AVENGING ANGEL'

By JANET MASLIN

Published: January 12, 1985

It can't be easy to run in an itty- bitty miniskirt and spike heels, especially when weighted down with junk jewelry. But Betsy Russell, who plays the title role in ''Avenging Angel,'' can manage this and talk a little, too. Though the role was originated, if that is the word, by Donna Wilkes in last year's ''Angel,'' Miss Russell makes about as much sense in it as anyone would. Angel, you may recall, was the high school honors student who spent her extracurricular hours as a Hollywood hooker.

Now, supposedly four years later, Miss Russell's Angel (a k a Molly) is seen studying law. But the slow-motion murder of her fatherly mentor - a police lieutenant who looks only a few years her senior - is enough to send her rushing to the closet, ready to fish the minis out of mothballs. Soon she is back on the streets, although not exactly back in business. Where Miss Russell is concerned, ''Avenging Angel'' is on the chaste side, which came as a big disappointment to most of the patrons of the RKO Warner Twin. It opened there and at neighborhood theaters yesterday.

The crowd may also have been mildly taken aback by the film's dopey humor, and by the cigar- chomping lesbian (Susan Tyrrell), ancient ex-cowboy actor (Rory Calhoun) and Haight-Ashbury holdover who function as Angel's cute sidekicks. The film, directed by Robert Vincent O'Neil, devotes more time to the various oddballs in Angel's immediate circle - which also includes two glamorous transvestites and a baby named Little Buck - than to the seamy world of prostitution. Every now and then Angel tries to rescue one of its victims, like the young girl from Omaha whom Angel guesses to be not a day over 13. Angel may have a good heart, but she's a lousy judge of age.

The most that ''Avenging Angel'' has to recommend it are costumes and sets that spell out everything, sometimes to comic effect. The wealthy villain, for instance, turns up in a silk dressing gown and sips from a flowery china teacup. Miss Tyrrell snorts a lot and really does give the impression of wearing army boots. And Miss Russell appears in outfits that are the ultimate in tartiness, though somehow they backfire. Even at her most street-wise, she manages to suggest a modern-day, modelly version of Little Bo Peep.

The Cast

AVENGING ANGEL, directed by Robert Vincent O'Neil; written by Mr. O'Neil and Joseph M. Cala; director of photography, Peter Lyons Collister; music by Chris Young; produced by Sandy Howard and Keith Rubinstein; released by New World Pictures. At Warner Twin, Broadway and 47th Street; Olympia, Broadway and 107th Street and other theaters. Running time: 92 minutes. This film is rated R. WITH: Betsy Russell, Rory Calhoun, Robert F. Lyons, Ossie Davis, Susan Tyrrell